Cancel those classes, print out a bracket and dust off your dancing shoes — the LSU men’s basketball team is going back to the Big Dance for the first time in three years.”I’m happy to still be playing,” said LSU coach Trent Johnson. “Unfortunately there’s probably only one team that’s going to be happy at the end of the year, but I’m happy to be playing. I’m happy LSU is in the NCAA tournament.”LSU (26-7, 14-4) received a No. 8 seed in the NCAA tournament Sunday after winning the Southeastern Conference regular season championship. The Tigers’ reward for their surprising turnaround from a 13-18 season is a date to dance Thursday with No. 9 seed and Horizon League regular season champion Butler.”It’s difficult to scout a team like Butler even if you watch tape,” said senior guard Garrett Temple. “You don’t know their personnel, you don’t know who their floor general is — who is running the team.”LSU joins Tennessee, a No. 9 seed, and SEC tournament champion Mississippi State, a No. 13 seed, as one of just three SEC teams to make the tournament. “It shows that they don’t have a lot of respect for the SEC,” Temple said. “We’re going to have to get our minds right and go face a good Butler team.”The SEC’s three bids are the lowest of any of the six power conferences and the fewest amount of teams the SEC has sent to the tournament since 1996. “I would bet that, in this decade, if you took the six power conferences, there’s never been a situation until now where one of the best seedings was No. 8,” CBS basketball analyst Jim Nantz said in a teleconference.The SEC sent four teams to the Sweet 16 during the 1996 tournament, and two of those teams advanced to the Final Four. Kentucky capped off that tournament by winning the national championship.The Tigers have some work ahead of them if they are to carry the SEC’s banner as effectively as the Wildcats did. LSU is heading to Greensboro, N.C., in the top half of the tournament’s South bracket.If the Tigers can advance past the Bulldogs, LSU will likely have a second-round game against No. 1 seed North Carolina just one hour from the UNC campus in Chapel Hill.But the Tigers aren’t willing to look that far down the road.”You can’t ever look over a team like Butler,” said junior forward Tasmin Mitchell. “North Carolina can’t look over whoever they play either. They’re a one seed so it’s likely they’ll win, but you never know in the NCAA tournament. That’s why everyone is excited at this time of year — the upsets.”Johnson said it’s the Tigers’ “responsibility to go out and get something done” to help the SEC’s image.And to get something done, the Tigers will be working on their dance moves for Butler.”I can get nine [tapes] tonight — all on Butler, nothing else,” Johnson said. “You can join me. It’ll be one big party, but don’t ask me to smile.”If you care to do the math, each of Johnson’s nine or so tapes will last one to two hours, leaving little time for anything besides basketball.”Sleeping is overrated right now,” he said.—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]